


Out of His Misery

by Arsoemon



Series: ShuKita 100 [39]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst and Tragedy, Blood and Violence, Dysfunctional Family, Friendship, Harassment, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Murder, Shukita - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:26:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27202442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsoemon/pseuds/Arsoemon
Summary: Day 5: FirstsAkira, Yusuke, Ann, Ryuji all live with their dysfunctional families in an old mansion turned apartment building. To call the place a hell hole is to understate its dark secrets and the burdens of its tenants.
Series: ShuKita 100 [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1485896
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10
Collections: Shukita Halloween





	Out of His Misery

With one last flourish, Yusuke caps his eyeliner and admires Ann's expert knowledge of makeup and his own skill as he puts away the brush and bottle of liquid foundation he'd just been working with before grabbing his school bag and putting on his shoes. He waits on the worn front steps of the old apartment building for each of his friends to filter out. Akira is the first.

"Good morning," he nods to him.

"Morning," the other boy rubs his eyes. "I'm sorry if the folks disturbed you guys last night." Yusuke gives him an understanding look.

With a yawn, Ryuji joins them. “Dude, what the hell was going on last night?"

"Parents," Akira kicks his foot against the ground." Ryuji rubs the back of his neck, needing no further explanation. Ann waves a good morning as she descends the stairs.

"Is everyone okay?" The boys all nod, not quite making eye contact. She sighs sympathetically, and they head off to school.

It's looking like it'll be a decent, uneventful day for Yusuke. Until Hiyori spots him.

"Kitagawa! Is that makeup?!" He shouts. "Well at least it's your shade, you prissy bitch." Yusuke stares at the boy with disinterested eyes. "You seem bored. Am I wasting your time, Miss?"

"Not mine, per say, but I am expected to be somewhere within the next 10 minutes."

"Oh! Well let's make this quick then." He and the three guys behind him snatch Yusuke up and drag him to the bathroom with far more force than they'd expected the task to require; Yusuke was fighting it with everything in him. They'd stopped him plenty of times over the course of the past three years, but this was the first that had turned physical. One kept the door shut. Another recorded. This left the last two with free hands, their evil imaginations running wild.

After 10 minutes, the four leave, their raucous laughter fading down the hallway as Yusuke slowly rises to his feet and stumbles out the door.

Akira sees him first. "Hey, we tried calling. What the hell happened?" He runs to support his limping friend.

Part of him wants to cry, but the majority of him is just tired and hoping the abuse here will serve to meet the quota of whatever might await him at home.

“Did you know I wear makeup?" He gives a laugh that comes out as a cough.

•

Days have passed without notable incidents. Ryuji’s dad has been away; Ann’s parents sent gifts. Things were kind of nice, and so far, this school day is no different.

Sometime after lunch, Yusuke is sent to take a note to Kawakami, Akira and Ann's homeroom teacher. He notices that she's out of the room before he spots Akira by the windows. Right at that moment, another boy leans down to kiss him.

That boy was Hiyori.

Akira's reaction time is a millisecond behind Yusuke's, and he pushes the boy away just as Yusuke drops the note on the floor and turns to head anywhere but there.

At break, Yusuke calls him out by name as he walks up to him.

"What do you wan-“

Yusuke's fist connects with the boy's jaw, and he pauses to give him a chance to fight back. "Keep your filthy hands off Akira."

"Akira?! That make you mad, Kitagawa? Well it's not as bad as what I'd do if I caught him alone." The boy's smirk quickly turns into a grimace at the increased pain in his jaw.

Yusuke punches him again and seethes as he begins pressing his thumbs against the boy's Adam's apple, taking him to the floor where he throws countless more punches before Hiyori's minions try attacking him.

Unfortunately for them, their leader had set Yusuke off, sent him on a rampage. Each one that so much as reached for him received a similar treatment. It took a minimum of six people to pull him away from the bleeding boys. And Hiyori wasn't moving.

He's still fuming and fighting to get back to his former tormentors when he catches sight of his friends.

“What the hell, Yusuke?!" Ann freaks out at all the blood on his clothes and hands before taking in the unconscious form on the floor. Even Ryuji is shaking his head as if the whole thing were shameful. "Go... just go home!" she pushes him away.

He turns and sees Akira staring at him in disbelief, as if he were a monster. And that's what does it. He pulls away and pushes through the gathered crowd, walking straight for the front doors with bloody fists clenched and tears falling.

The remaining three still meet up after school. Ann and Ryuji briefly speculate on what could've gotten into Yusuke—the polite and composed honor student—as Akira stands listening in silence. Soon, Ryuji has to go get changed for track, and Ann leaves with Shiho. Akira goes straight home, not really wanting to but not in the mood to loiter anywhere else, either.

As soon as he opens the front door, he can hear yelling and slamming from the apartment across the hall from his upstairs. He tries not to listen as he ascends the stairs; they aren't uncommon sounds around here. But he stops in place when he hears a particularly familiar voice shout something he can't make out back to the older voice. And that's when the other sounds start. Hating the feeling of helplessness, he hurries into his own door and heads straight for his room.

"You... boy... run to the store and get me...."

“Can't. Busy." He doesn't even pause to listen to the man but simply closes and locks his door, running his hands through his hair, agitated at everything. He listens to the jarring sound of flesh striking flesh through the wall to his left and the relentless pounding and incoherent shouting from his door behind him; and with a growl that grows into a wordless shout of his own, he turns and kicks the door until the pounding and yelling stop.

He leans his head against the door and breathes deeply until his blood has cooled back down, a broken laugh whispering through the now completely silent room.

After it's been quiet for a while, he steps out onto the balcony and leans over the railings to knock on the window to the next room. There's no answer, and eventually, he gives up and calls it a night.

“Hey, have you guys talked to Yusuke?" Ryuji asks as they sit for lunch. "I've seen him around the house here and there, but every time I try to talk to him, he just looks away and acts like I'm not even there. Pisses me off."

Ann and Akira share a look. "I think it's been a rough couple of weeks for him," she looks sad.

“Wonder what happened?" Ryuji thinks aloud as Akira mentally recalls one night in particular.

•

Yusuke had stopped coming to school and answering text messages, two things that were no less out of character than him beating someone unconscious more or less unprovoked. Hoping to at least see him if not talk to him, Akira had gone out onto the balcony again, as he had for the past few nights. Only this time, he didn't have to knock; Yusuke was already outside.

Akira cycled from shock to relief and back to shock as he really looked at his friend. It had been just over a week since he'd last seen him, and yet he looked notably different. There were bags under his eyes. His skin was sickly pale and dotted with dark bruises and a healing scar on his forehead not dissimilar to Akira's own. His hair was a little longer and far more unkempt than he usually wore it. His face was gaunt, body even thinner than before. And he was smoking. A sad "Yusuke..." is all Akira can utter.

"You caught me," he continues to stare out into the distance as he takes another drag.

"Where've you been? Why don't you respond to our calls or texts?"

"There's no end to the... work I've been assigned," he grimaces. “Besides, what is there to say? You all think I'm a monster. And maybe I am...." he looks down.

“I don't think you're a monster. None of us do. You just needed a way to deal with some anger. I mean there are probably better ways, but fuck if I could tell you what they are." Akira leans over the rail. "And monster or no, you always have me."

Yusuke looks at him then, and without being able to choose the right words to describe it, Akira recognizes that look. Any response Yusuke may have given is interrupted by a gruff voice barking at him from inside.

"Well," he puts out the cigarette and sighs heavily. "I must be going. Goodnight." He attempts a small but strained smile before he ducks back into the room. Akira was glad to have seen him finally, but if he were being truthful, the interaction did little to alleviate his fears. After some time, he ducks back into his own room, vowing to try even harder to get Yusuke back.

•

Akira is worried. Yusuke was supposed to be coming back to school today. Not only did he not come down in time to walk with them, but no one had seen him all day. And now he wasn't answering his phone. It's eerily quiet when he walks into the main hall of the apartments. His concern at its peak, he decides to forego the window and go straight for the door.

"Yusuke?" Akira knocks at the door a couple times before he tentatively tries the handle. It's unlocked.

He slowly opens the door and stops cold when he realizes what he's seeing. So much blood.... His eyes land on a pale figure slumped in the chair in the center of the room with another pale figure lying at his feet, surrounded by red. Akira steps in and hurries to shut the door behind him.

"No more...." the seated figure mumbles over and over again, a blood-splattered tea kettle hanging limply from his hand.

Akira approaches him slowly, hands raised in front of him. "Yusuke...."

He looks up with a similar expression to the one he'd worn the day he attacked Hiyori, but this one was darker, madder. "No! No more. No. More. No more!"

Akira slowly kneels just beyond the edge of the pool of blood. "No. It's over, Yusuke. No more." He moves just as slowly as he reaches for him. Yusuke startles but allows Akira to take his hand.

"Monster..." he stares at the form of his former teacher lying on the floor at his feet.

Akira gently pulls him up from the chair. "You have me."

Yusuke looks at him then, and Akira gives him a reassuring smirk as he grabs a nearby blanket to use in taking the kettle from Yusuke's hand. He goes to find towels and trash bags and a number of other things that may come in handy for this macabre cleaning session. Under Akira's direction, they move the body to the bathtub and manage to get the place reasonably clean, hiding what couldn't be erased with inconspicuously placed rugs and pillows and pieces of furniture.

"What do you want to do with it?" He asks as they stand over the corpse.

"What do you mean?" Yusuke still sounds a bit dazed.

"You wanna bury it? Burn it? Scatter the limbs in the sea?" Akira suggests casually enough to stir the slightest bit of unease in Yusuke's mind that he quickly dismisses for the time being. Whatever Akira's deal is, it was truly saving the day right about now.

"What do you feel is best?"

Akira rubs his chin. "Based on efficiency alone? I'd dismember and scatter. To be thorough, I'd probably burn and then scatter, assuming you're not curious about cannibalism."

Yusuke stares at Akira, a bit unnerved. "Is there an inconspicuous way to burn?"

"I'm sure we'll come up with something. Either way, we need to get to chopping like now." Akira takes the cleaver from his back pocket and starts in on the grizzly process. Yusuke watches in slack-jawed horror.

“Oh shit. I'm sorry. Did you wanna wait outside? I know he was kind of important at some point." Akira eyes him steadily, and Yusuke feels like he's seeing everything for the first time. Whatever he once loved about the man had died long ago and left his form to be reanimated by a fiend; what lies haphazardly dumped into the tub is simply the result of a successful exorcism. He blinks a few times before his face evens out.

"No," he eyes the body as he holds out his hand. "Give." Akira hands him the cleaver and pulls out his own dagger as they both get down to work.

**Author's Note:**

> Another work I may return to.


End file.
